Are there reliable statistics that show this?
I’m trying to get an idea rolling for a mobile app that could handle the most used platforms on the Fediverse.
For example, let’s assume that Mastodon, Lemmy and Peertube turned out to be the most used platforms on the Fediverse. Would people be interested in a mobile app that could properly integrate all of these?
You can see statistics such as popular software by user count here: https://fedidb.org/ It’s run by the developer of Pixelfed.
Personally I never liked mastodon all that much, (I’d take pleroma,misskey,friendica + variants over it )so a little dispiriting to see it dominate with Google like proportions. Not surprised though.
Integration across various platforms is one of those things where I’m not sure even know whether they want it or not. We’re so used to disconnected platforms that it really is new ground for most.
It’s also probably hard and very open ended.
Which is all to say absolutely, there’d be interest, it’s just that it’ll be a bumpy ride but also worth it for showing people what is possible.
Allowing multiple accounts across multiple platforms to be merged into single timelines in customisable ways, alone, would be awesome.
As far as platforms go, I’d prioritise, on the basis of popularity and uniqueness:
- Mastodon (for obvious and sad reasons)
- PeerTube (video is unique on fediverse)
- Lemmy (communities, link aggregation posts, no character limits, thread management etc are all unique and powerful on the fediverse … could have been 2nd but pushed out IMO because of uniqueness of video).
- Pixelfed (for the instagram people, but, ASAIK, not too distinct from microblogging, but it is popular, though easily viewed from mastodon I think)
Roll those 4 into one (and maybe even just the top 3) and you would have a banger of an app. Even rolling mastodon and Lemmy into a single interface would be quite a demonstration.
im personally fine with using more than one website on the internet.
Fedilab exists, and AFAIK it supports a variety of Fedi platforms, including Mastodon, Pleroma and PeerTube.
Thank you.
Also Friendica.
Would people be interested in a mobile app that could properly integrate all of these?
I like your idea. It is important to reflect as a starting point that although the platforms are compatible via ActivityPub or other federated protocols, the whole reason why they are separate platforms is that they are for different use cases.
Examples: A peertube user would want to watch videos and only comment on the video occasionally, a Mastodon user would want person to person conversations, a Lemmy user would want topic-based discussion with less emphasis on who they are talking with, etc.
Making an app that caters to all the different use-case groups seems like a difficult task to me.
With the negative stuff said, I do think this idea has some good potential. If a Lemmy client had seamless PeerTube video or other service integration that would be very interesting and cool. If there was some hybrid kind of app that gives a unifying look to different ActivityPub-compatible platforms like Lemmy and Mastodon, that would also be cool and allow for easier cross-Fediverse access, opening up a lot of possibilities.
the whole reason why they are separate platforms is that they are for different use cases.
The reason they’re separate platforms is because they were developed by separate people/teams. They’re not even vastly different usecases. Link aggregation isn’t far from microblogging. The comment you made is even represented as a
Notewhich is what all the microblogging fediverse platforms use for their posts. If you make aNotefrom a microblogging platform and include a link, that is represented differently from Lemmy’s posts (which is aPageI think?) but semantically they’re the same thing.a Mastodon user would want person to person conversations, a Lemmy user would want topic-based discussion with less emphasis on who they are talking with, etc.
A conversation on Lemmy is started by a posted link, but again, there’s no real difference in this thread we’re participating in and a thread on a microblogging platform. In fact, microblogging users can participate in this thread. And this thread could have been started from a microblogging platform and it could be the exact same thread.
A fediverse app should display
Actors (which could be a human user, Lemmy community, Kbin magazine, bot user, etc) and its list of posts and allow that actor to be followed (assuming the current user’s server supports following that actor type). The functionality is basically the same on every platform and the UX should be the same; the tricky part is showing/hiding features based on what the current server allows (e.g. if the app is displaying a user, it should show a follow button on microblogging platforms and kbin, but not on lemmy) and handling the side effects which are different for every platform
